NECESSITY OF A PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE.
TOWARDS the close of the last session, the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised, that during the re- cess they would seriously consider the question of building a Public Record Office at once, and thus rescue the records from continued exposure to dangers, to which, says Mr. Braidwood, the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade, "no merchant of ordi-
nary prudence would subject his books of account." A paragraph in the newspapers this week reminds us of the actual state of the records ; and we trust that Sir George Grey and Mr. Wood re- member and will redeem their promise. It is nothing less than shameful, that a collection-of public documents such as no other nation in Europe can match, for antiquity, amount, and com- pleteness, should be suffered to remain a day longer than is abso- lutely necessary in their present most unfit repositories—in stables, chapels, vaults, garrets, &c. A mere curiosity-dealer would not suffer his wares to remain exposed to fire-risks which are esti- mated at more than trebly hazardous, after he had been warned of the fact. Yet nearly a year has elapsed since Mr. Braidwood pronounced the fire-risk at the Carlton Ride Repository—where three-fourths of all the legal records, commencing as early as Richard the First, are deposited—to be as much as 5s. per cent, the ordinary risk being ls. 6d. per cent; and at the White Tower, which holds the Chancery records, the same percentage.
It appears to be two years since the dangers at the Carlton Ride were discovered, and nearly 2,0001. spent in a partial re- moval of them (see Seventh Report of the Deputy Keeper); and a speedy remedy was to have been found by removing the con- tents into the roofs of the new Houses of Parliament : but it is a recent discovery that the White Tower, as an ordnance store- house, is in a state of jeopardy greater even than Carlton Ride. " Owing to the great size of the building, and the quantity of stores in it, the fire," according to Mr. Braidwood, " would be so unmanageable, that there would be little chance of saving a sin- gle leaf of the records."
Eight years have passed by since the Public Records Act directed the Treasury to provide a suitable repository, as the most essential step in the reform of the system. Measures for doing so were delayed, because it was said the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament would be an ample and proper one. But when the question came to be examined practically, whether this tower would really contain the records, (to say nothing about its peculiar inappropriateness,) it appeared certain that it would not. Subsequent investigations have shown that the tower would not hold even half of them. The roofs of the new Houses were then proposed as auxiliary repositories : the maddest of all schemes. Difficult of access, cramped in space, widely dispersed, and essen- tially mixed up with the experimental ventilation, it is impossible in reading the Report of the Record Officers on these roofs, not to see that the proposal was quite impracticable. While the use of the roofs was under discussion, the dangerous state of the White Tower became knownand the impolicy of delaying longer the settlement of the question was again pressed on the Go- vernment by the Master of the Rolls. Mr. Charles Buller, Chair- man of the Select Committee which sealed the doom of the Re- cord Commission, moved for a Select Committee, if possible to settle the commencement of a suitable building; and the late Go- vernment assented to its appointment,—for it appears, from cor- respondence between Lord Langdale and the Treasury, subse.: quently printed, that they were driven into a corner. This Com- mittee, however was not named, owing to the change of Minis- ters, and Mr. Buller himself became a member of the Adminis tration. Some resolutions, affirming the necessity of immediate decision, were submitted to the House of Commons late in the session ; but they were not pressed, Sir George Grey promising to consider the subject maturely during the recess. The only rational conclusion at which it is possible to arrive must be, that the building of a suitable repository should be com- menced without any further delay ; not only for the sake of the records, but as a measure of economy. Returns to Parliament have shown that the temporary palliation of the evils of the present repositories costs nearly 1,0001. a year, in what Lord Lang- dale, properly enough, calls "imperfect remedies and makeshifts." And it is now clear that there can be no economy in waiting for the Victoria Tower to be used as a part of a larger building. A supplemental building, ornamented as it must necessarily be if placed in juxtaposition with the Victoria Tower, would be much more costly than a plain, safe, independent structure, in another site. Mr. Barry has suggested New Palace Yard as a site : but the objections in respect of the cost of ornament apply here in full force; besides, the space would certainly be insufficient if the Law Courts were to remain. Originally, the Victoria Tower was des-. tined for the Parliamentary records ; and these, with the printed papers of the two Houses, are more than sufficient to fill it.
We repeat, there can be no shadow of reason to delay any longer the building of a General Record Office. A capital site on the Rolls estate has been kept vacant for these ten years ; and if, as is proposed by the Metropolitan Improvement Com- missioners, a new street from the Strand to Ludgate Hill parallel with Fleet Street should be made, the Public Record Office might front it, and become one of the most marked of our national de- partments, as the depository of historical treasures and evidences of legal rights, coming down in unbroken series from the Con- quest to our own times.
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